Worship and Parenting

Over the last several weeks, we’ve been answering the questions of where and when we worship by looking at the ways we worship through our family life. I want to end this sub-series on Family worship by looking at the ways that we glorify God through the relationship of parent and child. To see that, Let’s read Eph. 6:1-4 together. From this text, I want you to understand that parents and children glorify God through obedience, mutual respect, and formation in the wisdom of God. To understand this text, let’s consider two points: the instructions to children and the instructions to parents.

First, let’s consider the instructions to children in verses 1-3. There are two actions and two motivations that Paul gives to children in this passage. But, before we can see those, I want to point out something important about the structure of this passage. You will notice as we work through this, that the passage follows the same format as the wife/husband commands in chapter 5, v. 22-33. Remember that Paul is working from this concept of “sphere sovereignty”, where different positions in society, like husbands and parents, are given authority, and other groups, like wives and children, are to be submissive to those authorities.

We have to remember that because the first action that God commands for children is that they should “obey.” This word carries the idea of a subject who is obedient to his or her ruler. Children, you need to understand that your parents have been placed in a position of authority by God himself. Now, I know that we parents don’t always deserve respect and submission. But, even so, parents have the authority to rule over their children, and as children, you should obey, not just because you want to honor your parents, but because you want to be obedient to God.

The second action that Paul gives for children is that they should “honor” their fathers and mothers. The word “honor” here means to respect or venerate. Again, the issue is one of authority. In the same way we might honor the president or a police officer because of his or her position, regardless of what we think of the individual holding the position, children should honor their parents. It’s important to understand that this concept of “honor” applies to children of all ages. It doesn’t matter if you are under your parents’ roof or not, you are called to honor your parents. One of the clear ways that we honor our parents when we are adults is through our care for them as they age. In Matt. 15:3-6, Jesus rebukes the Pharisees because they had established a rule that allowed people to get out of their responsibilities to care for their aging parents if they pledged to give a portion of their inheritance to the temple. Jesus scolded the Pharisees for breaking the commandment to “honor your father and mother”.

So, with those two actions in mind, let’s consider two motivations for these actions. First, in verse 1, Paul says that children should obey their parents because it is “right”. This is simple and straightforward: you should obey your parents because it is the right thing to do. Period. Second, in verses 2-3, Paul reaches back to the 10 commandments to give us another motivation. He quotes the promise that is given in the 5^th commandment: “that you may live long in the land.” Remember, a few sermons back, I said that this promise is concerned primarily with the success of God’s people in the promised land. It’s a general principle (though not always the case) that Christian children who listen to the wise instruction of their Christian parents will grow into wise adults who have faithful marriages, raise wise children of their own, and help to establish the next generation of the church.

So, now that we’ve seen the instructions to children, let’s consider the instructions to parents. There are two instructions that are given to parents in this passage, but before we can look at them, I need to make a point about who these instructions are directed to. You’ll notice that Paul begins verse 3 by directing his commands to “fathers”. This doesn’t mean that these commands don’t apply to mothers as well. After all, v. 2 commands children to honor both father and mother. Rather, what Paul is doing is directing a command to the head of the house, the father, but intending it to be a rule for both parents.

With that said, we can’t miss that Paul (and God) considers the head of the house to be the father. This is important for our day, because the role of the Father has been devalued to the point that we seem to think that fathers are practically useless. In most sitcoms, the father is nothing more than a grown-up child, providing little more than comic relief. Yet, the truth is, fathers shape their children in ways that truly matter. Even secular research shows that children who grow up with a father in the house develop better relationship skills, have a better sense of who they are as a person, and have stronger moral convictions. But, for us, Fathers matter because God designed them to matter.

That brings me to the two instructions that Paul gives to parents. First, Paul starts in verse 3 by warning fathers not to provoke their children to anger. It’s lost on us just how radical this command is, but, in ancient Roman culture, children were seen as less than human. Children who were not wanted were often put out on the street by their parents, and physical and sexual abuse were common. In our day, we may not do anything so extreme as what I’ve just explained, but we still find ways to provoke our children. We discipline out of anger or don’t discipline enough. We place unreasonable expectations of excellence on our children or run them into the ground with our aspirations for them. Parents, our calling is to raise our children out of love, not out of social pressure or anger or our own sense of success.

Second, Paul commands parents to “bring children up” in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. This term, “bring them up”, is the idea of nurturing in a direction. Parents are to form and shape children, directing them towards the Lord. To understand better what the Bible teaches about “bringing them up”, I want to give you three ways that we can “bring up” our children in the Lord. The first way is through discipleship. Prov. 20:7 says that our children will be blessed by our righteous way of life. Discipleship is the concept of following after the footsteps of a teacher. Think of how the disciples of Jesus lived, ate, and slept with Jesus. As parents, we teach our children by the way we live in front of them. The second way is through discipline. Prov. 29:17 says, “discipline your son, and…he will give delight to your heart.” Discipline does not just mean punishment, but shaping a child in everything, from environment to friends to school to home. The third way is through direction. Prov. 22:6 says, “train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” Parents are called to teach their children Godly wisdom. We do that by teaching them the word of God. You can do that with nightly devotions, reading Scripture together, memorizing Scripture on the way to school, or watching Christian YouTube channels like “The Bible Project.”

With those principles in mind, let me give you three threats that our modern world sets up against parents. The first threat is time. Everyone is busy nowadays. Even our summers are not restful anymore. By the time we get through with all of the activities, there is little to no time for an evening devotion with our children or prayers before bed. Because of travel ball or other hobbies, even our Sundays are taken up with busyness so that we don’t even have time to go to church as a family. But there is a solution: you do not have to have your children involved in everything! Most of the time, our children are involved in the things we sign them up for! Because we are their parents and we have full authority over their lives, we can say “no”! If you are signing your child up for things that will require them to practice or play during church on Sunday, you are teaching your child that worship is less important than a sport. If you are so busy that you only have time to wolf down supper and send the kids off to bed and have no time to sit down together and read a chapter of the Bible, you are losing precious time for discipline and instruction in the Lord!

The second threat is technology. Researchers estimate that the average smartphone user spends 3-5 hours a day on his or her device. Just imagine that! We lose 3-5 hours a day just staring at Facebook memes and funny cat videos on these little screens! And that’s not even counting the time we waste watching the same 3 minutes of news repeated ad nauseum on our favorite cable news channel, or the time we waste on Netflix. And, what is even worse is our children have those same devices, too, and they are being shaped by them just like we are. They are learning their sexual ethics from their favorite Instagram influencer. They are learning hate from some funny Youtuber. They are feeding their lusts and destroying their expectations for their future spouses by going to websites that I can’t even mention here. And, we can decry all of the trash on their devices, but guess who gave the devices to them? We did! Now, I know, if we take it away, they might not be as popular, and they may scowl at us for a while but remember that our first responsibility is not to help our kids be cool. Our first responsibility is to raise them in the Lord! And, even when we give them a device, we can still have rules about how they use them. We can put restrictions on the device, or time limits on their use, or make them turn the devices in at a certain time. This is what discipline looks like in this modern age, and we can’t be afraid to do it.

The final threat is timidity. Our fear of looking weird or sticking out can cause us to give in to the culture around us. That same fear can keep us from committing to a daily family devotion or praying together as a family. Often, we let the great be the enemy of the good. Because our schedules are so hectic and we can’t have a family devotion every night, we just don’t do it at all. Or, because they are so busy with other things, we don’t push them to read their Bible before bed.

Parents, we only have 18 years with our children. We have to take seriously our responsibilities to train them up in the way they should go. If we don’t, our children will learn to worship other things besides the one true God. May we devote ourselves to faithful discipline and instruction that shapes our children to glorify God.